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Amazon We'd all like to use our time efficiently — however that translates for us: waste less time refreshing social media we ultimately don't care about, split screens to compare data without flipping between pages, or getting our 10-year plan into the day-to-day so we can feel more productive instead of just busy.

It's easy to stretch a task that could be done in 40 minutes into an all-day event, especially with the introduction of the internet, but that's not a very satisfying way to live. It also doesn't maximize your talents or ensure that you'll grow at the kind of rate you might like to see when you're looking back on what you've achieved in life.

Below are nine productivity tools that will help you turn your abstract goals into achievable, actionable items for your day-to-day life, so your good intentions for writing a book by 25 or making partner by 45 don't just stay intentions.

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The SELF Journal

Best Self Co.

So you've got big long-term goals, right? Write a book by 25, pay off your student loans by 30, make partner at some point.

We all have aspirations, and most of us have realized with the passing of time that those goals can feel ill-defined, with no real hard path leading us to achieving them. It's easy to get caught up in the joy and tedium of the day-to-day and forget that you want to publish a novel in the next three years.

The SELF journal is one highly recommended way to break that chain of thinking and inaction by focusing long-term goals into tactical day-to-day tasks to help you achieve them and stay mindful. This journal is the byproduct of research into what habits make the most successful, high-performing people so successful in comparison to others who just let life happen. The answer is that they have the ability to plan, effectively execute, and track progress by creating a daily ritual for success.

Stop feeling busy but not productive. This cleverly arranged, engaging journal is meant to make sure that your good intentions don't just remain good intentions.

Momentum

iTunes

Don't let the simplicity of this app fool you into thinking it's not as invaluable as it is. It's exactly that simplicity that makes it effective. You want to declutter your life and hold yourself accountable to new habits in a realistic way? Slim down the processes instead of adding them.

Momentum is a simple habit tracker that lets you check off your goal 'habits' from your iPhone, Apple Watch or Mac. You can set up reminders, app badges (shows you the number of remaining habits left to be completed that day), and create your own scheduling (set weekly targets or specific days).

It's based off Jerry Seinfeld's "don't break the chain" productivity hack — meaning that every day you complete a habit, the longer your chain grows, and the less likely you are to quit. Simple, but highly effective.

The free version gives you three free habits and the premium version gives you unlimited habits ($1.99/month or $14.99/year).

Notability

iTunes

Notability lets you annotate PDFs, mark up photos, record lectures, provide audio feedback, and place screenshots and handwritten notes side by side to augment one another, all of which are accessible through the cloud (so your notes are accessible pretty much anywhere on any device). Personalization and combinations of learning styles to get the most out of your memory are endless.

It was the best-selling paid productivity app every year from 2013 to 2016.

I get why; I used it in college and found that when I incorporated Notability into my learning it noticeably cut down on the time I needed to spend in the library to get the same good grades. It's a great tool for students, professionals, and teachers alike for notes, in whatever form they must take for you. Record a lecture to replay along with colorful notes that incorporate many mediums, or provide more engaging notes during and after a meeting or in your classroom.

Magnet

iTunes

Especially if you're switching from Windows to Mac, this is a helpful tool to keep your productivity up while you transition. Magnet will help you compare windows or data from one app to another side by side in a way that isn't as intuitive on the Mac.

You can size a window into half of your screen, drag windows to the corners and snap them into quarters if you need. You won't have to switch back and forth, and instead can view them all directly side by side.

If you don't have split screens at the office or don't at home, this is one way to close the loophole for $1.

It was also Apple's pick for "Get Productive" and "Invaluable Utilities."

Moleskine's smart writing set

Moleskine

I used this smart writing set during lectures, and it was one of the single most helpful tools I found in college. It allows you to draw, write, and sketch freely with the Moleskine pen and smart notebook and then digitally converts your creations in real-time so you can download, email, and print them easily.

For classes or work meetings that didn't allow for laptops, I used this set to write and doodle my notes and then had access to them on my devices later without skipping a beat.

PDF Expert

iTunes

This entry is brought to you by the dog-eat-dog New York City real estate market. Recently, I was visiting another city (with all the jam-packed days of tourism that implies) when my roommate found a great apartment and was told we all needed to sign and send in applications within the next two hours. Unless I wanted to derail the whole day for everyone and turn our tour into a scavenger hunt for a Staples to print everything off, fill out, and fax them, an app would have to fill the gap and make an urgent and unexpected thing like this manageable on the go.

A big plus is that you can instantly search through all opened documents at the same time and compare results.

It might seem like a hefty price to pay, but if you're going to need a capable PDF reader and editor and find yourself often needing to extract pages, combine documents, and edit text seamlessly, then this might be your best option. Use it on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

1Focus

iTunes

This app lets you stay distraction-free if you find yourself heading to Starbucks to work and instead wind up refreshing Facebook.

1Focus basically simulates crunch time for you; you set the apps/websites to block and the duration you want them blocked for so you can maximize a chunk of time and stay productive. If you want to start spending 30 minutes of high productivity at the coffee shop over a few hours spent doing a little of this and a little of that, this might be a worthwhile addition to self control in the Digital Age.

A lined notebook

Flickr

Part of my productivity routine is writing down, by hand, the passages/themes/succinct quotes from books that provide useful tips on my trade, insight into my goals, or ways of thinking that I'd like to remember to employ. I keep the lined notebook in my commuting bag and read it during stalls on the subway for a refresher. It's a nice, seamless reminder of tips, tricks, and insight that really means I don't have to reread the same books or re-watch the same TED talks.

Moleskine is a dependable, respectable name in the notebook hall-of-famers, and it's sturdy, professional, and trend-defying as always, which makes it perfect for heavy use in whatever company.

Good old-fashioned Post-it notes

While I love my own productivity hacks, I still keep a stack of Post-it notes on hand as a constant reminder the entire time I'm at the office or at home.

While trying to learn a new language, I pretty much cover the house in notes with the appliance, light switch, or cabinet's name in the other language. It's not a foolproof system (cluttered and noticeably less mobile than storing things in the cloud), but it's a nice complement to the more tech-savvy apps and gadgets I use to stay organized and productive.

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